This is sort of hard for me to admit to a bunch of vegetarians/vegans.
But anyway, about two months ago I made the decision to become a vegetarian. I just completely stopped eating meat right off the bat. After a week or two I tried eliminating as much dairy as I could. As long as I was finding other foods to eat, I was completely fine. I honestly didn't miss meat that much.
I was just wondering, at any point have any of you ever slipped and ate meat? How did it make you feel and how did you move past it and continue being a vegetarian.

My wife has been a vegetarian for about 17 years. She originally became a vegetarian because the texture of meat disgusted her. I've known her for 7 years and I have seen her eat meat about 4-5 times (maybe 3 times on purpose). Her general response to eating meat is that she is grossed out. Usually she ends up with a really bad stomach ache. A couple times she ate meat by accident and then figured it out by the stomach ache that follows the meal.

There are many reasons for becoming vegetarian. I would think that the only reason to be upset is if you are an ethical vegetarian (you feel that killing animals is wrong). In that case, while "slipping up" is bad, you can comfort yourself in the fact that you are consuming much less meat than you once did.

I'm new here. I have to start my log! My best friend got me a pipe and some fittings so we can make a pullup bar in my basement (where I have wooden joists on the ceiling, holding up the floor above). My father used to train and build professionally and has a home-gym full of Frankenstein-esque metal monsters, and his pullup bar is made in this way. He's 64 in July and still enviably buff. After finding this site, I was housesitting for them and used his bar (with the mods), and I liked the feel of the metal.

The pipe, elbows and fittings are a 32nd birthday gift--this week it happens! I'm a woman and I'm not feeling thrilled with my body or fitness level lately. This site seems awesome! :) It looks challenging, but adjustable and not intimidating. What a great resource.

I feel like I should reply to the "lapsed veggie" question--I became vegetarian at 16, so it's been 16 years since I ate meat. I became vegan at 19, and went on with it for 11+ years, until I became a graduate student in New Haven, where they pride themselves on their pizza/apizza. I understand this pride, because there is some damn good pizza all over the city.

While I am vegetarian for "ethical" reasons, I truly believe that absolutely every choice we make is in degrees of morality or amorality. There are a thousand moral facets to every decision we make, and while we may not be eating meat, if we're eating a tomato picked by some wage slave that's travelled on a truck for 4 days, do we factor in fuel, human cost, etc.? Then how do we quantify which is better or worse? I know that the way I quantify morality is different than how someone else does. Meat-eating doesn't seem to me as a moral absolute. There are very few moral absolutes in the world, but one of them is self-respect.

My point is that, while I'm essentially vegan (and I have food allergies that prevented me from eating milk or eggs as a child until age 14, so I ate them consistently for only about five years, during which I was sick all the time), the label is really restricting to people because some treat it like a fundamentalist religion. Being so rigid about one's morality leads to problems. Guilt is ultimately counterproductive (although it's unfortunately a powerful motivator, even for me).

If you want to eat meat, go for it. If you don't want to eat meat, go for it. I continue to be amazed at the level of "business" people make around others' dietary choices in social settings. Rather than stress yourself out, drop the label of "vegetarian" and you'll be able to circumnavigate all kinds of asinine questions and tests. You have a right to make your own food choices, even if it's meal-by-meal. If you eat meat once a week, it's still less than most people, if "animal flesh" is your ethical litmus. There are degrees as well in free-range and grass-fed versus McDonald's and Purdue.

I felt the need to pipe up because this exact advice may seem somehow skewed if an omnivore posted it.

We're blessed to be in a situation where we even *have* choices about food. You can do your best work across all platforms if you don't beat yourself up about what wasn't a "lapse" at all but just an independent event. I've begun to eat eggs occasionally, and choosing what kinds of eggs I eat and which chickens lay them helps me feel OK about this choice.

If you're doing what you feel is ultimately right, or at least trying, you are OK by me. I sometimes have to turn off my "philosophy brain" because the moral analyzing of every minute thing becomes tiring. Just be kind to yourself!